


you're my forte, baby

by daisysusan



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:01:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5267147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisysusan/pseuds/daisysusan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thatcher Demko, Boston College goalie, meets John Hayden, mediocre guitarist and worse lyricist, when he performs at an open mic night. They ... get to know each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're my forte, baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [addandsubtract](https://archiveofourown.org/users/addandsubtract/gifts).



> This fic was inspired mostly by [this](https://www.instagram.com/p/kxr76GRq3z/) picture of John Hayden looking like he's in a 90s grunge band, flannel and all. Fair warning: there is some aggressive handwaving about NCAA scheduling in places.
> 
> Many thanks to gdgdbaby and maleyka for reading this over, and to everyone who encouraged.

Open mic night at the mediocre bar that gets away with never carding isn’t exactly something to write home about, but it’s better than sitting around drinking on his bed, so Thatcher goes when some of the guys ask. Everyone else has already bailed, because there were too many whiny guys with guitars, and Thatcher is about to when he sees one of the whiny guitar guys leaning against the bar.

He’d gotten a particularly lukewarm reception—pretty deservedly, he sang some Pearl Jam and then something that was apparently his own composition. It was all very earnest and cringeworthy. Also, his guitar may have been slightly out of tune, but Thatcher doesn’t have the most trained ear. Something was definitely off.

Still, now he’s leaning against the bar, not talking to anyone, and looking very dejected. And like, he’s not bad looking. 

Thatcher slides into the empty space next to him. “Can I buy you a drink?” he says with a smile.

The guy gestures to the half-empty beer in front of him, shrugging dismissively. “Come on,” Thatcher says. “You look like you could use more than one beer.” 

“Yeah, okay,” the guy says. “Sure.” He sounds as dejected as he looks. What a mess.

Eventually, the bartender looks their direction, and Thatcher catches her eye. “Another two of whatever he’s having,” he says, gesturing to the guy. “Here’s my card for a tab,” he adds, and she smiles thinly as she takes it.

There’s a lengthy, uncomfortable silence as the guy stares at his new mug of beer. “I’m John,” he says, not actually looking up.

“I’m Thatcher,” Thatcher says. And then, “So, do you live around here?”

“Uh,” John says. He still hasn’t smiled. “No, I live in New Haven. I’m just here for the weekend.”

Thatcher narrows his eyes. “Do you go to Yale?”

John looks uncertain for a moment, and then nods. “What about you?” he asks Thatcher.

“Boston College,” Thatcher says, and then he grins and smacks John on the back, almost too hard to be friendly. “Enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?”

\--

Despite being an out-of-towner, and despite not smiling as much as a normal person, John from Yale is more than happy to press Thatcher into a dark alley outside the bar and kiss him stupid. He’s more than a little drunk, sloppy and needy with it, and his mouth is warm in the cool fall air. 

Thatcher eventually pulls his mouth away from John’s neck and his hand away from John’s ass—John makes a gratifyingly disappointed noise—to convey some important information. “I’d say we could take a cab to my place,” he says, reluctant to reveal anything that might make the kissing stop, “but I have a roommate. Dorms.” He shrugs apologetically. 

He doesn’t expect John to look completely unfazed. Thatcher just had his hand on his ass. They were clearly heading toward sex. But then John opens his mouth and says, “Are there any hotels near here? I don’t mind—”

Thatcher knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he just pulls his phone out and starts poking at Google Maps. “There’s one a few blocks away,” he says. “Like a Hilton or something.”

\--

Thatcher’s never had sex in a hotel before.

The bed is too soft to really be comfortable, but it’s huge, and there’s no one but John in the room, and, a tiny voice at the back of his mind says, they can be as loud as they want. 

And then John is kissing him again, less sloppy than outside the bar, with more intent. One of his hands is on Thatcher’s ass, over his jeans, and the other is on Thatcher’s neck, holding him close. He’s a good kisser, confident but not too much tongue or slobber.

Thatcher bites down on his lip, and John groans, pushing futilely at Thatcher’s jeans. “Off, come on,” he mutters against Thatcher’s mouth. “Why are you so dressed?”

“Ugh,” Thatcher says, tugging at John’s shirt. “You’re one to talk.” 

John pulls away and—holy shit—is naked what feels like ten seconds later. Thatcher is still fumbling with the buttons on his jeans, but now John is just standing there naked and watching him and it’s weirdly hot. He makes a bit of a show of it, unbuttoning his shirt slowly and almost shimmying out of his jeans. John’s eyes track them as they slide down his thighs, and Thatcher can feel them even when he’s looking down to take his shoes off and make sure he won’t trip over anything. 

They stand there for a moment, naked in the middle of the hotel room and then John takes a few steps forward. “Can I—” he starts to ask, and Thatcher nods before he’s even done talking. Unless John is a hell of a lot weirder than he’s indicated so far, there’s nothing he can ask for that Thatcher would say no to.

And, frankly, Thatcher would say yes to some pretty weird stuff anyway.

John doesn’t do anything weird, though, just wraps a loose hand around Thatcher’s half-hard dick and starts jerking him. They’re not quite making eye contact, but John’s hand is big and warm and just the right amount of pressure to get Thatcher all the way hard. Thatcher lets him go until his hips are jerking forward, and then he extricates himself enough to shift the whole operation around and push John onto the bed.

It’s maybe the first time all night that John really smiles, flopping back on his elbows and grinning up at Thatcher expectantly. “Got something in mind?” he says, a little smug. 

Getting laid is always good for the sad ones. 

“Mmm,” Thatcher says. “I thought you could just lie there for a few minutes while I have some fun.”

John’s expression turns skeptical for a moment, until he realizes that Thatcher is kneeling at the foot of the bed and grabbing at his legs to pull him forward.

“Oh,” John says. “Right, uh, yeah.” 

Thatcher ignores him, and licks around the head of his dick. John makes a choked-off noise, which he muffles very quickly. Thatcher disapproves.

Pulling off just a bit, he says, “What’s the point of having a hotel room if we’re not going to be loud?” And then he takes as much of John’s dick into his mouth as he can.

He can’t do the whole thing, but he fists one hand around the base and bobs his head smoothly. It’s clearly good enough, because John makes a really satisfying amount of noise, clearly having taken Thatcher’s admonishment not to be quiet to heart. It’s been a while since Thatcher had a dick in his mouth—for all the jokes that he only goes anywhere to pick up, he hasn’t had a lot of time between school and hockey—and it’s so much more than he remembers.

Or maybe that’s just John’s dick. It’s a good size, hot and heavy against his tongue, and John is a very polite blowjob recipient. He keeps himself mostly still, doesn’t pull Thatcher’s hair. But he does say a lot of things about how great Thatcher is and lots of “fuck” and “please” and “jesus christ.”

Thatcher pulls almost all the way off and hollows his cheeks around the head, looking up through his lashes at John. His stomach is shaking and he’s fallen back so that Thatcher can’t see his face. He can see the way John’s hands are fisted in the comforter, though, and the muscles twitching in his thighs as he fights to keep his hips still.

It’s pretty fucking hot. He tightens his fist around the base of John’s dick, sucks hard at the head and jerks him in time with it, and John makes a loud, almost anguished noise and comes. 

Thatcher kind of hadn’t meant for John to come in his mouth, but it’s hard to regret it now that he’s looking at the fucked out, almost confused expression on his face. 

“Fuck,” John says, not actually moving at all. Thatcher is so hard he wants to die, or maybe just crawl up on the bed and rub off against the covers. Preferably while looking at John’s face, because he looks like Thatcher just fucked his brains out and Thatcher is into that. “That was—really good.” 

“Thanks,” Thatcher says, letting the smugness seep into his voice. He hoists himself off the carpet easily—there are some perks to spending a lot of time in weird kneeling positions for hockey, and one of them is comfort while giving blowjobs. Not part of the pitch for kids to play the position, sure, but it works out for him well enough. 

“You should come up here,” John says. “I’m not going to move and I can’t kiss you if you’re on the floor. Or jerk you off.” 

Thatcher does. He knows a good offer when he hears one.

\--

At some point in the middle of the night, Thatcher wakes up. John is asleep, sprawled out across more than half the king-size bed, still naked. Thatcher probably ought to just leave, since it was just a one-off, but—the bed is really comfortable, and showering will probably wake John up but he doesn’t want to get a cab covered in his own jizz. 

Instead of getting up, he shifts around to find a cool spot on the sheets, and as he stills, realizes that John is squirming too. 

“Are you sneaking out?” John asks, his voice rough with sleep. There’s a strange tone to the question, like he expects the answer to be yes. 

Thatcher is sleepy, and warm, and honest. “Thought about it. But it’s pretty comfy here. Definitely a step up from my dorm bed.”

John kisses his shoulder. Thatcher doesn’t see it coming in the darkness and the gentleness of it takes him by surprise. “Good,” John says softly.

It’s too easy to roll onto his side and kiss John again, to fall asleep curled against him. The sheets are warm here, but in a comfortable way. John drapes an arm across Thatcher's hips and kind of latches on. Thatcher feels like a very large but very happy teddy bear. 

\--

Thatcher oversleeps, of course, and doesn’t wake up until late morning. John is snoring softly next to him, one of his arms twisted at an angle that doesn’t look at all comfortable. Eventually, Thatcher is going to need to leave. Maybe soon. He does actually need to go to his classes today, and there’s training tomorrow morning. 

John isn’t holding onto him anymore, so he slips out of the bed—not without regret—and heads for the shower. He waffles for a moment and then, thinking of the strangeness in John’s voice last night, the honesty in the darkness, leaves the door wide open while he showers. If nothing else, the sex was good enough for Thatcher to be nice in the morning. 

But also—those were some pretty sad songs last night. John seems like he needs someone to treat him gently. 

There’s a knock on the doorframe after Thatcher’s been standing under the hot spray for a minute or two. He pokes his head out from the other side of the curtain and John is lurking in the doorway, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“You want to join me?” Thatcher says, and John grins. 

“Sure,” he says. 

Shower sex is always more logistically difficult than sex on a bed. Everything is slippery and there’s not really enough places to hold on, but it’s usually worth the trouble. 

For instance, this morning, John gets on his knees as soon as he climbs in, splashing everywhere but tucking his face against the cut of Thatcher’s hips and just—resting there for a moment. He runs his hands up and down Thatcher’s thighs a few times, up the sides of his hips, around to his ass. And then he jerks Thatcher’s dick a few times and slides his mouth around the head. 

Thatcher’s knees don’t buckle but it’s a close thing. John is really good with his mouth, confident and not too slobbery, and able to take Thatcher so deep that he gets a little light-headed thinking about it. He moves his hand around the base in time with his mouth, and makes encouraging noises when Thatcher’s hips start jerking minutely. The upshot of it is that Thatcher is on the edge really, really embarrassingly fast, one of his hands fisted in John’s hair and the other scrabbling for purchase on the wet tile. 

He comes on John’s face. It’s not, like, an intentional thing on his part, though he thinks it might be on John’s. It’s pretty clear that Thatcher is on the edge, and instead of swallowing him down or standing up and jerking him the rest of the way, John mouths around the head of his dick and works his hand frantically. 

It’s—fuck.

John stands up, come streaked across his cheeks, and kisses Thatcher, hard and more than a little filthy. Thatcher gets a hand around his dick, already hard and slick from the water, and jerks him slowly. John bites down on Thatcher’s lip when he comes, going stiff and then limp against him, his face tucked into Thatcher’s shoulder. 

Thatcher hums, letting one of his arms wrap around the small of John’s back. “That was nice.” 

John makes a nonspecific contented noise. 

“You should give me your number before I leave,” Thatcher continues. “If you’re ever back in town we could do this again.” John doesn’t actually answer, but he nods, and he doesn’t move away from Thatcher, which is good enough. It’s already overwhelmingly clear that his mental state after orgasms is “cuddly and useless.”

Thatcher likes it more than he’s awake enough to deal with.

\--

It is not particularly to Thatcher’s credit that it’s all of four days before he’s horny and drunk enough to text John “wish u were here,” and then fall asleep, his phone pressed between him and the mattress. When he wakes up, the battery is dead, but as soon as it’s plugged in a text from John appears. _u too_ . 

Thatcher’s not drunk and horny anymore, so he doesn’t answer it.

\--

The next text he gets from John is, of all things, an invitation to an open mic night in Hartford. Kind of a trek, and in the fall he’d have laughed out loud, but spring is easier without traveling for games, and he has a pretty easy courseload this semester. 

So he says yes. It’ll mean listening to more of John’s music, sure, but it’ll definitely be worth his while. 

The music is uninspiring, a couple of predictable covers and one more song that John wrote himself. It’s—horrible. Well, the music and the singing are just subpar, but the song itself is clearly about a past relationship and it leaves Thatcher a little stricken. Something about offering someone your heart and having it blown up by a grenade. The imagery was very violent.

Still, it gets the point across. Something something horrible breakup something something heartbreak.

Thatcher buys John more drinks afterward, and somehow manages to weasel out of actually complimenting his performance by kissing him a lot. They go back to John’s dorm room, a drive that seems interminable, and John sucks him off on the unmade twin bed, Thatcher’s hands flailing about wildly until he finds purchase on the comforter, trying not to squeeze his thighs around John’s head.

“Thanks for coming to see me,” John says when he’s done, a smear of Thatcher’s come on his lower lip. Thatcher smiles down at him, still a little dazed from his orgasm, and pats John’s head awkwardly. 

“Anytime,” he says. He should—do something for John, he thinks, still not entirely together. 

It’s too late, though, because John is resting his head against Thatcher’s knee and jerking himself off furiously. He comes with a soft noise, the tension draining from his body in an instant. 

Thatcher tugs at the collar of John’s shirt until he gets the message and clambers up onto the bed, draping himself entirely over Thatcher and nuzzing his throat. He falls asleep slightly too warm, a little squished, and wondering idly who John’s song was about. 

\--

After that, John texts a lot more. Dumb stuff, mostly, talking about his life and his classes and his friends. Thatcher answers almost every single one.

\--

John comes to Boston again a few weeks later and spends another night crooning into the microphone of a tiny bar. He invites Thatcher specifically, of course, and Thatcher goes because he’s a sucker. John looks good, strumming his guitar and emoting at the audience. He might be covering Green Day, but at least he looks good while he does it.

It’s also the third time Thatcher’s seen him, and the third time John’s worn flannel, which is ridiculous. 

He probably could have picked a better time to tell John as much than lying in another hotel room, tangled in the covers with the offending flannel shirt draped over his shoulders. John is leaning against the headboard, strumming idly at his guitar. Naked.

“It looks awfully good on you,” John says. There’s a thread of something new in his voice that Thatcher’s a little scared to put a name to. The shirt is worn soft and smells like John’s shampoo around the collar. It’s hard to come up with an argument right now.

Thatcher pulls the shirt tighter around his shoulders and presses his face against John’s thigh. “Shut up,” he mutters. John ruffles his hair, and then slides his fingers through it and tugs gently. 

“I like you in it,” he says. 

Something warm curls in the pit of Thatcher’s stomach, and he falls asleep to the sound of John murmuring lyrics to himself. 

In the morning, after a lengthy and mostly ineffective shower, John takes him out to breakfast. Their knees knock together under the table, and his fingers brush Thatcher’s when they both reach for the syrup. Thatcher ignores it, mostly, and focuses on telling him about the various ineptitudes of his teammates. 

John is laughing at him, but it’s a friendly sound. “You know, I used to play,” he says when Thatcher pauses for breath. 

Thatcher stops talking, the words he was about to say vanishing from his brain. John is built, sure, but he wears ugly flannel and jeans that are a little too tight and his hair is long enough that it trails across his shoulders when he shrugs. Thatcher wouldn’t have pegged him for a hockey player.

“Don’t give me that look,” John says. “I contain multitudes.”

“Sure,” Thatcher says, sarcastic. But—it’s a connection he didn’t expect to have. He’s smiling almost despite himself.

“I fucked my shoulder in high school and learned to play the guitar instead,” John continues. “And now I can be a real college student and live on pizza and beer.”

Thatcher gives him an appraising look. “Somehow,” he says, letting his voice drop low, “I don’t think you’re doing that.”

John grins at him, not at all subtle. He doesn’t volunteer any more information about the hockey, and Thatcher doesn’t ask. Not right now anyway; maybe another time. Maybe when they’re drunk. “You think I’m hot,” John says instead. 

“Obviously,” Thatcher says. “I haven’t been trying to hide it.” He bats his eyelashes melodramatically. “Come and take me, you hunk,” he says, but his voice breaks halfway through when he cracks himself up. 

“I really can’t take you anywhere,” John says. But his fingers graze Thatcher’s on the table, and Thatcher can’t meet his eyes for a moment.

\--

They go back to the hotel, John tells the front desk they’re adding late checkout to the room, and when they get upstairs he presses Thatcher into the mattress, slow and firm. 

John is just kind of bulky, as a person. Not in a bad way, but he’s comfortingly heavy where he’s perched over Thatcher’s thighs, looking down at him speculatively. He runs his hands up Thatcher’s chest under his shirt, pushes the shirt up until it’s bunched in Thatcher’s armpits. 

“I wanna fuck you,” John says after staring for what feels like an eternity. He looks—he looks like he wants to do unspeakable things to Thatcher. Thatcher would be interested in trying all of them. “Is that okay?” John asks, when Thatcher doesn’t answer immediately.

“Christ,” Thatcher says, trying to pull his eyes away from the line of John’s cock, visible through his pants. “More than okay.” 

John apparently brought lube with him, which makes Thatcher want to laugh a little bit, but it’s actually pretty hard to do when John’s tracing his hole with one slick finger, refusing to do anything more than tease, and kissing up the inside of his thigh. He takes it achingly slow, one finger until Thatcher feels like he’s going to cry, and then the second just as slowly.

He keeps kissing across Thatcher’s legs, his hips, up to his belly button and down almost to his knees, working his fingers in and out and in and out, never quite as fast as Thatcher needs but more than enough to make him want more. He presses a smacking kiss to the head of Thatcher’s dick as he slips a third finger in, and Thatcher’s hips rise at least several inches off the bed. The noise he makes might actually be inhuman. 

“You’re going to kill me,” he says weakly, when he has the capacity to form words again. “If you don’t fuck me, I’m going to die.” 

John spreads his fingers, just enough for the stretch to be noticeable, and Thatcher keens high in his throat. It’s not a particularly nice noise, but John doesn’t seem to mind. He kisses the crease of Thatcher’s hip, and then sucks on the skin, hard enough to bruise. 

“Fuck,” Thatcher hisses through his teeth. 

When John pulls his fingers out, Thatcher whines, his hips working against nothing. John runs a soothing hand down his leg and murmurs, “just a second, babe.” Thatcher tries to force himself to breathe deeply, but it’s difficult when he’s this on-edge. He closes his eyes and focuses on the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. 

It’s a little bit of a surprise when John pushes his legs wider, up as far towards his shoulders as they’ll go, and then leans forward and kisses him. 

“Goalies are so flexible,” he says against Thatcher’s mouth, and Thatcher makes a noise that he hopes is appropriately smug. 

It doesn’t last long, because then John is shifting away, holding his hips still and guiding himself in. He goes just as slowly as he did with his fingers, until Thatcher is squirming and panting, basically begging to be actually fucked. The teasing promise of fullness is more than he can take. 

“Hurry up,” Thatcher says, but the words come out rough and pleading. “Please,” he adds.

John kisses the back of his knee but doesn’t actually speed up. The achingly slow movements persist until Thatcher is completely incoherent. He can feel his dick bobbing against his stomach, damp at the tip, and the heat everywhere John is pressed against him. Inside him. 

He can’t really reach to get a hand around himself, and even if he could, he’s busy trying to get his hands on John’s ass to urge him faster, harder. Deeper, impossibly deeper. 

Eventually, John consents to Thatcher’s clear wishes, and speeds his thrusts up. Skin smacks against skin, and Thatcher closes his eyes, focuses on the sensations. The skin where John’s hips hit his. The smell of their mingled sweat. The short, sharp noises John makes with every thrust. The world around him shrinks, until it’s just the friction of their bodies, the sounds of them, the thudding need in Thatcher’s stomach.

He’s never actually come untouched, though, to be fair, no one has ever tried. He’s just starting to ponder if this could be enough, if just the lightest brush of John’s stomach across his dick could bring him off, when John somehow frees one of his hands and wraps it around Thatcher’s dick. He gets two quick tugs in, dry and uneven, and then Thatcher is coming so hard the world goes a little white around him.

John thrusts a few more times, his thighs going stiff as he comes. Thatcher is still in a haze as John pulls out and does some cursory cleanup. He doesn’t even open his eyes until he feels the mattress next to him dip. 

“Mmm,” he says. In theory, he was going to aim for something more coherent, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort. It still feels like there are sparks skittering across his skin, through his mind. He’s pretty sure he looks completely out of it. It’s not inaccurate.

“That was—” John starts, but he doesn’t finish the thought. There’s a lingering silence, during which he kisses Thatcher’s shoulder, and then he says, out of nowhere, “I like you a lot.” 

Thatcher likes him a lot too, but it’s hard to find the words for that at the best of times, forget when he’s just had his brains fucked out. Instead of saying anything, he rolls over and presses his face into John’s chest. John’s arm comes around him like it’s a habit, and Thatcher lies there until his breathing has completely evened out.

He kisses the jut of John’s collarbone, and the soft skin between it and his throat, and then the curve of his shoulder. It’s easier than words, to just trail soft kisses up the side of John’s neck, fluttering across his pulse point and letting the stubble on his chin grate at his lips. He gets to the corner of John’s mouth and kisses that too, featherlight and lingering.

It’s not a declaration but—it’s something. 

John’s hand shifts and curls around the back of his neck. “Do you have any weekends off this fall?” he says, his breath moving Thatcher’s hair. 

Thatcher shrugs. “One or two, maybe?” He’s racking his brain, but nothing is standing out. There’s probably something at some point.

“I wanted to go out to my parents’ place on Martha’s Vineyard at some point,” John says. “You could come, uh, if you wanted to.” He pauses, runs his nails lightly down the back of Thatcher’s neck. “I would like that.”

Dirty pool, Hayden, Thatcher thinks. Like he could say no to anything to right now. 

“Sure,” he says. The words are muffled by the meat of John’s shoulder, but he doesn’t care enough to move. “That sounds nice.”

\--

Thatcher dozes on John’s chest for a few minutes before he drags himself into the shower. This time, John doesn’t follow him, and he’s propped up against the headboard when Thatcher emerges, a towel wrapped around his waist. John is naked, but he’s pulled the covers up over his legs, and he’s scribbling in a tiny black notebook with worn covers. 

He puts it away as soon as he sees Thatcher, flicking a rubber band around it with practiced ease. As Thatcher pokes through the clothes on the floor, looking for his pants, John brushes past him and smooths a hand over his back. Thatcher tries not to shiver. 

John showers quickly, dresses quickly—because Thatcher already sorted their clothes out, except for the flannel, which he’s keeping—and doesn’t actually touch Thatcher as much as he really wants to be touched as they leave. He does grab Thatcher’s hand and kiss him on the sidewalk before he leaves, though, and that makes up for a lot. 

It might be the first time they’ve kissed with the certain knowledge that it won’t lead to sex. Just John’s mouth soft and sure against his. They let it linger, John’s hand curled possessively around the back of Thatcher’s neck and Thatcher’s hands fisted in the bottom of his shirt. When they pull apart, Thatcher is breathing heavily. He rests his forehead against John’s, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to actually see what’s written on John’s face. 

There’s one last kiss, a brief press of lips, and then Thatcher has to get on his train, and go back to his dorm room. It seems like a much bleaker proposition than it did yesterday.

\--

The amount of texting really picks up after that—every day, pretty much—and there’s other things too. John snapchats Thatcher clips of music he’s working on, and Thatcher leaves him rambling voicemails while he’s walking to class, full of stories with no clear beginning or end. Just things he wanted John to know. 

Sometimes, he gets pictures of terrible rhyming lyrics about his stories sent in response, the words scrawled across lined pages in John’s messy handwriting. It’s not that he thinks any of the music is particularly good—the lyrics especially are horrible—but there’s something that twists in Thatcher’s heart every time he realizes that John is writing things based on him, on the stories he tells and the people he knows.

They talk most nights, Thatcher curled up with his phone after he’s finished with his homework. John sometimes isn’t done when he calls, and he mutters distractedly while he finishes problem sets, unable to actually keep up a conversation but seeking out Thatcher’s company anyway, such as it is. 

The only calls Thatcher doesn’t enjoy are the ones where John asks for his opinion on music or lyrics. He doesn’t want to lie, not if he can avoid it, but he can’t bring himself to say anything too cruel either. It feels like he has John’s heart in his hands, in a way, like he could break it if he said the wrong thing.

Thatcher’s not sure how he feels about that. They’ve only seen each other a few times, when it comes down to it, and this is—a lot of power.

He takes the most cowardly option available to him, and deflects. Every time. John doesn’t ask a lot, and Thatcher strings together some nonsense about poetry or voice or—whatever. It’s not like he knows much about music anyway. And then it usually devolves into phone sex, and John is too distracted to ask again.

\--

Thatcher expects John’s parents to be at the house with them for the break, but it’s clearly empty when John pulls into the garage. The lights are all off, and there’s no other cars to be seen. 

John kisses him in the kitchen, as soon as the door to the garage falls closed behind them. Thatcher drops his duffel and winds his arms around John’s back, pulling him closer and trying to kiss him harder. Phone sex is good—facetime sex is better—but actually having John pressed against him is on a whole different level. His breath is warm against Thatcher’s face, and his skin is warmer still. 

Thatcher breaks the kiss to breathe, and buries his face in John’s shoulder. He inhales deeply; John smells like fabric softener and skin. Maybe he can just stay here for an hour, John’s arms almost painfully tight around him.

It turns out that’s not an option, because John gets squirmy, tugging uselessly at the back of Thatcher’s shirt and pressing kisses to the edge of his face where he can reach. 

They don’t fuck in the kitchen, though it’s not for lack of trying on John’s part. He has his hand down the front of Thatcher’s pants before Thatcher even manages to bring up maybe finding a bed. 

“I want to treat you right,” Thatcher says, a breath from John’s mouth but somehow still a little wry. John laughs, but his eyes are dark, wanting.

“Right,” he says. “Upstairs.”

The bed is enormous—king size, and with a huge headboard. It’s covered in decorative pillows and there’s an extra blanket folded neatly on the bench at the foot. The bathroom door is ajar and Thatcher can see the edge of the counter. It must be the master, he thinks. Or maybe not, the house is huge.

John drags him toward the bed by his belt loops and basically throws him into the absurd pile of pillows. Thatcher laughs, unable to hold it in, and then John is crawling over him, grinning and pushing some of the pillows onto the floor. He kisses Thatcher on his hands and knees, dropping to his elbows to make the angles easier.

It’s slow, a patient kiss even though Thatcher knows John isn’t patient about sex, right now or ever. He feels a little bit like he’s being taken apart. The only place they’re touching is where John is kissing him, and it’s torturous after weeks of not seeing each other. Thatcher wants to touch him everywhere and instead—this. 

He reaches up, winding both arms around the small of John’s back, and pulls hard. John gives, dropping his full weight onto Thatcher and only breaking the kiss for a few seconds. 

“Much better,” Thatcher says into John’s ear before he bites gently on the earlobe and kisses down his neck. 

Still, John takes him apart slowly, and fucks him slowly, and then, in the afterglow, kisses him slowly. By the time he came, Thatcher was so desperate that tears pricked the corners of his eyes, and he couldn’t tell you the things he said even if you paid him. But John kisses him anyway, kisses his mouth and his cheeks and his collarbone and bruise on his ribs from a weight room mishap. John strokes his back after he comes, and curls around him, and Thatcher never wants to go anywhere else. 

\--

In the morning, they jerk each other off, mouths open against each other in something that isn’t quite a kiss, and then shower together without fooling around. 

John touches Thatcher’s back gently, his fingers following the streams of water. They linger on a scar low on his hip. He doesn’t ask, but Thatcher answers anyway. 

“I fell off my bike when I was seven.” 

John kisses the back of his neck. 

\--

It’s—well, it’s a vacation. The ocean is too cold for swimming, but they nap on the beach in sweatshirts instead. Thatcher spends a long time watching the breeze through John’s hair while John’s lying on his stomach, face hidden between his arms. It’s less weird than just watching John sleep, in theory. 

They drink John’s parents’ liquor until they’re giddy and loose on the couch, and they they have sex there, John laughing into Thatcher’s neck as he fingers him, and Thatcher grinning at him afterward, irrepressibly happy. They don’t talk to anyone except the people who deliver food for the whole weekend, and Thatcher sleeps more than he has in weeks, curled around John and under a mass of clearly expensive blankets. 

John fiddles around on his guitar a few times, but it doesn’t turn into anything until the third morning, when he props himself against the headboard while Thatcher is looking for one of his socks that may have gotten thrown under the bed. Thatcher isn’t paying attention at first, because it’s often the more pleasant alternative, but the words John is saying start to drift into his brain. 

The lyrics are as terrible as usual, though the tune isn’t the worst he’s come up with it. It’s almost catchy. But the lyrics—they’re not about heartbreak and terrible endings, they’re about falling for someone, about teetering on the edge of something that could be huge and wanting to fall but not wanting to fall alone. It’s hopeful.

It’s hopeful, and Thatcher is pretty sure it’s about him. 

Unless John is having romantic weekend getaways with someone else, which seems unlikely.

He gives up on his sock, because he got the pair at CVS and this is more important. It’s almost difficult to meet John’s eyes after he stops singing, because Thatcher is pretty sure he’s blushing, and John’s cheeks are red. He isn’t looking up from his guitar.

“So …” he says, the word a question that trails off into nothing.

Thatcher takes two steps until he’s standing next to the bed, and takes the guitar out of John’s hands, laying it on the floor. Then he grabs John’s face in both hands, and kisses him. 

There’s something desperate in the way John kisses him back, like all the emotions that have been stewing with potential between them are on the table now and all that’s left is to act on them. He bites at Thatcher’s lips and Thatcher isn’t as delicate with his teeth as he could be, licking into John’s mouth and nearly biting on his tongue. Their teeth clash, just once, and then Thatcher climbs onto John’s lap and changes the angles. 

His hands are still on John’s face, cupped loosely around his cheeks, the ends of John’s hair trailing between his fingers. It’s gentle, belying the franticness behind the kiss. John’s hands aren’t, though, grabbing at Thatcher’s ass and trying to push his shirt up and his boxers down simultaneously. Thatcher is already gasping, pushing back into the firm warmth.

The first time they fucked this weekend was slow, rediscovery and exploration. This time—this time they don’t even make it to fucking. There’s too much burning through them, everything they haven’t been talking about coursing under Thatcher’s skin, and he just wants John’s skin against his. 

Mustering the coordination to push John’s shorts down isn’t easy, but it’s worth it when he can rearrange them slightly and thrust into the cut of John’s hip. They’re both still wearing their shirts; Thatcher’s hiked up to his armpits and John’s clinging to his chest. They’d have to stop kissing to take them off, and it’s not worth it, not when he’s already gasping open-mouthed against John’s lips, barely enough to be called a kiss but too vital to even consider pulling away. 

They come like that, pressed together from shoulder to knee, one of Thatcher’s legs between John’s, John’s thighs tight around it. Thatcher bites down on John’s lip when he comes, and it’s only a few more thrusts, rough and uneven, before John is spilling, his come hot on Thatcher’s skin. 

Thatcher collapses on top of him, losing the last bit of strength he was using to hold himself up, and pants against John’s neck. 

“So you liked it?” John asks him, but he sounds completely wrecked, rather than the hesitant tone he usually has when he asks Thatcher about his music. 

Thatcher takes a deep breath and tries to remember how to form words. He kisses the dip above John’s collarbone while he composes himself, and then bites softly at the tendon on the side of John’s neck.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, and it’s not even a lie. 

John turns his head to kiss him again. 

\--

When Thatcher can be bothered to move his legs again, he drags himself into the bathroom to clean up. It ends with John sucking him off in the shower, achingly slow and with Thatcher’s hands fisted in his hair.

It feels almost like a promise. 

\--

The weekend ends too soon, and as John drops him off back at school, all Thatcher can think about is the terrible metaphor from John’s song, the one about standing on the edge of a cliff trying to decide if it’s better to be pushed or jump with someone holding your hand. 

John kisses him goodbye in the front seat, both of them twisted toward each other, and only the thread of having to answer for an unexcused absence from practice in forty five minutes convinces Thatcher to actually get out of the car. 

\--

Thatcher didn’t actually think it was possible for them to talk more, since they talked almost every day, but they manage it. There are a lot of hours-long skype calls where they both just do their homework and watch TV and occasionally talk about life. John comes to Boston more often, waving off Thatcher’s halfhearted protests about the cost, and sits in the front row at BC games, wearing a t-shirt he pulled out of Thatcher’s dresser even though he says it makes him a traitor. 

After the games, Thatcher kisses him in the first private place they can find, between buildings on a dark sidewalk or against his closet door if his roommate isn’t home. 

Thatcher always texts him from the bus and, unless John is in class, he always answers immediately. It makes the interminable rides feel shorter, and it makes Thatcher smile until his face hurts.

Hockey season makes it harder for him to get away to visit John, which at least spares him some of the awkwardness of going to John’s shows, but it weighs on him. John texts him terrible phone videos of himself playing, sometimes covers and sometimes new things he’s written. Thatcher casts around for things worth complimenting and sometimes he even finds them.

He says a lot of things about how he likes the emotion behind the songs, how true and honest it seems. Sometimes he even manages a few nice words about the tunes, or says that he thinks the song John picked to cover suits him very well. 

Somehow, he suspects none of it is quite what John wants to be hearing.

\--

The season ends, not as well for BC as anyone wanted, but at least better than BU. Thatcher takes the train to New Haven as soon as they’ve finished everything up, and lies on John’s bed for a long time, curled into one of John’s terrible flannel shirts and moping shamelessly.

John spends most of the weekend curled up next to him, stroking Thatcher’s hair and saying comforting things against Thatcher’s skin, barely audible but perfect nonetheless. He doesn’t even get his guitar out, just wraps himself around Thatcher and lets Thatcher be pathetic. 

By the end of the weekend, Thatcher feels mostly prepared to go back to school and face real life, even if it would be easier if he could do that and then go back to cuddling John.

He takes the flannel with him, even though it’s hideous and worn nearly threadbare at the elbows. John doesn’t say anything, but his eyes linger on it when he kisses Thatcher goodbye, and his fingers trail across the bottom as Thatcher walks away reluctantly. 

\--

The breaking point comes when Thatcher, a little drunk and more than a little exhausted from a brutal exam, answers one of John’s _so what do you think about this new song i’m working on_ texts with _i think u look hot in that shirt_. 

His phone rings a few minutes later, a picture John took of himself in a BC cap looking very unimpressed flashing up at him from the screen. He answers it without thinking twice, smiling even though he’s been abandoned by his friends, who wanted to go into Boston to find a club and laughed when Thatcher said he needed to call John before bed.

“You’re whipped,” Matty said, poking him in the shoulder a little too hard.

Thatcher didn’t actually care enough to argue.

“Hiiiiiii,” he says to John, drawing it out and giggling to himself just a little. 

“Do you even like my songs?” John asks, not even bothering to say hi. His voice is hard, and he sounds angry, and Thatcher—doesn’t know how to react. 

He’s lying on his side, the phone resting on his ear, and it’s like his entire brain grinds to a halt when he processes the question. There’s—it’s—on some level, he’s been dreading this for months, knew that it was coming. But now that he’s faced with it, after a few beers and anticipating phone sex, he doesn’t actually remember how to form words, much less tell a coherent lie.

The silence drags on too long, apparently, because John talks again. “You don’t, do you?”

He sounds so sad that Thatcher wants to immediately dispute it, wants to gush and rave, but even the simplest lie sticks in his throat. “No,” he starts, but he can’t get the words out. The sentence trails off, pathetic and unconvincing. 

“Oh,” John says.

“But—”

John hangs up.

Thatcher rolls onto his back, the phone falling onto the mattress next to him, and stares at the ceiling for a long time. Eventually, he musters the energy to send John a text that just says _I’m sorry_. John doesn’t answer right away, so Thatcher goes back to staring at the ceiling. He must fall asleep at some point, because when he opens his eyes there’s sun starting to peek through the uncovered window and he has a strange feeling in his head that isn’t quite a hangover.

There’s no texts from John on his phone, which is barely clinging to life. Thatcher plugs it in, chugs half a bottle of water, and goes back to sleep.

\--

He wakes up again several hours later, feeling more human but also far more aware of the fact that John hung up on him last night and never answered his text. Which is very unlike John. John isn’t even the sort of person to wait ten minutes to answer a text, forget overnight.

Thatcher calls, and gets barely more than one ring before a recording of John’s voice is telling him to leave a message. 

He doesn’t, but he does call again in an hour, only to get John’s voicemail again. 

Two more calls, two more chances to leave John a voicemail, and Thatcher decides to go out with some of the guys instead. Predictably, he drinks too much and then spends the second half of the night trying not to get too mopey. 

It doesn’t go very well, which is not a surprise in any way, and he ends up telling several people about all the reasons he misses John, at great length and in great detail. None of them are at all impressed, though two of them at least buy him drinks, which is something. Thatcher ends up drunker, and sadder, than he meant to be when he left his room. 

John’s not going to call him tonight. Or ever again, probably. 

Thatcher slumps down lower in the booth some thoughtful person shoved him into a few minutes ago with a glass of water. He hasn’t actually had any of the water, because he’s not thirsty. And cold, there’s ice in it and condensation all over the sides. He’s so warm and comfy right now, cold water will ruin it.

Instead, he gets his phone out and pokes at instagram for a few minutes. No one is doing anything interesting. He likes some pictures, since there’s nothing better to do. 

Maybe if John isn’t going to call him, he should call John.

John doesn’t pick up, which is predictable. Thatcher calls again right away, and this time it goes straight to voicemail. Rude. 

“I miss you,” he says into John’s voicemail. He might be slurring a little bit. “I just—I miss you a lot. I’m sorry for like …” He trails off and stares at the water glass for a lengthy few seconds. “I’m sorry for stuff.”

Someone takes the phone out of his hand and says “Sorry about him, he’s plastered,” before they hang it up. “Drink the water,” the same person says. Thatcher hasn’t looked up to see who it is. He drinks some water, though.

It’s cold.

“I’m taking you home now,” the voice continues.

“I wish John was taking me home,” Thatcher says.

“You’re disgusting. Get up. Don’t puke on me.”

\--

The weeks that John ignores him are interminable, but it does get a little easier. Thatcher stops expecting his phone to ring every night, stops automatically reaching for it to text John about everything that happens. It still hurts, though.

\--

The semester is almost over, and Thatcher has mostly stopped drinking his feelings, when he gets home from a late seminar to an envelope on his bed, one of the big ones with bubble wrap inside. It’s from John, the address and return address scrawled across the front in John’s uneven handwriting. 

He opens it a little nervously, because—well, what could John possibly have to send him?

It’s a CD. The kind you buy at the drugstore, in a clear case, with a post-it note stuck to the inside front. There’s nothing written on the CD itself, but when Thatcher flips the case open he can read the post-it.

 _songs I wish I’d written for you_ , it says.

The letters are cramped at the end, like John got halfway through and realized he was going to run out of space. But all the words are there, legible, and. It doesn’t say anything about what kind of songs John wishes he’d written. Maybe it’s just “Fuck You” ten times.

Regardless, Thatcher is curled up with the CD in his laptop drive and his headphones on within five minutes. 

It’s—it’s definitely not angry breakup songs. It’s a whole CD of love songs, and Thatcher closes his eyes, because it’s a lot to take in. He doesn’t know a lot of them, because John has weird and specific taste but he knows enough. The ones he does know are mostly clichés—Seal serenading him about a kiss from a rose, or Oasis screeching at him that they don’t believe anybody feels they way they do about him. 

The one about sharing your irrational fears with someone you’re falling for hits closer to home than Thatcher wants it to. 

He tries to pay attention; this is how John expresses himself. This is important to him. He’s telling Thatcher something, he’s just doing it on his own terms. 

When he gets to the end, he fumbles for his phone and scrolls until he’s found his text conversation with John. The last one was just a series of eggplant emojis that Thatcher sent.

 _Come here_ , he types, and then, _I miss you_. It takes a moment to summon the courage to hit send, but he does it, and then forces himself to put the phone facedown and out of his reach at the far end of the bed. 

It doesn’t ring right away, and Thatcher pulls up Netflix to distract himself.

\--

His phone doesn’t ring for almost three hours, by the end of which Thatcher feels like he’s going to throw up. He’s into his second movie on Netflix, and he startles at the noise.

It’s John. Somehow, he almost expected it to be someone else. His mom, maybe, or someone asking if he wanted to go out tonight.

“Hi,” he says, his voice unsteady. 

“Hi,” John says. He sounds a little breathless. “Uh, come let me in.”

“What,” Thatcher says, flat.

“You told me to come,” John says, sounding as uncertain as Thatcher feels. “So I came.”

Thatcher feels a little lightheaded. “Oh my god.” 

He gets downstairs in record time, mostly because he doesn’t bother actually putting shoes on, just runs down in his socks, sliding across the wood. John is standing outside the door, visible through the windows of the common room, shifting from foot to foot and staring at the ground. Thatcher swings the door open, keeping his toes carefully inside, and John looks up.

“Hi,” he says, and Thatcher just stares at him for a long moment. 

“I didn’t think—” he starts to say, and John smiles at him. He doesn’t look smug, which is what Thatcher would have expected.

“I know you didn’t,” he says, quietly. “I wanted to.”

Thatcher should probably be doing more than standing in the doorway, staring at John, but he’s not sure how to make himself. John takes a step forward, and then another, and he’s standing right in front of Thatcher.

“We should go inside,” he says, his voice low. 

“Right,” Thatcher says. He nods twice before he remembers that he needs to step out of the doorway to let John through. Everything feels like an extremely vivid dream, the kind he’s going to wake up from in half an hour miserable and alone. 

They walk up the stairs in silence, and John hovers just a little too close behind him as he unlocks his room. His roommate is—out. Somewhere. Thatcher didn’t actually ask or anything, but he’s enjoying having the room to himself for now. 

As soon as the door is closed behind them, John steps forward until he’s so close to Thatcher that it would be uncomfortable if it was anyone else. Thatcher opens his mouth, but he can’t find any words. John is so close that Thatcher can feel the heat of his skin, or thinks he can. 

“I’m sorry,” John says, and—there’s a whole conversation they should probably have, about eveything that happened and apologies and other stuff. Thatcher kisses him instead. He’s a little taller than John, but not enough for it to matter, except when he’s pushing John back towards the door so he can use more force, kiss John to make up for all the weeks he didn’t have the chance to. 

John inhales sharply as Thatcher kisses him, an aborted gasp, and then curls a hand into the hair at the back of Thatcher’s neck, the beginnings of loose curls he’s been meaning to get cut. He’s glad he didn’t, now, with John’s fingers laced through them and curling against his scalp. John is holding him so close, barely letting him move away to breathe and they’re just—kissing. 

There’s no force behind it, not after the initial press to get John’s back against the door, and there’s no teeth and no desperation. Just their mouths moving softly together, lips sliding and tongues touching and it’s everything Thatcher missed and it’s an apology and maybe it’s a promise. He buries his face in John’s shoulder when he needs to catch his breath, drops a few stray kisses there over the fabric of John’s shirt. John, in return, presses a string of kisses to the side of Thatcher’s head. 

“I shouldn’t have stopped talking to you,” he says, the words warm against Thatcher’s ear. “You deserve better than that.”

Thatcher doesn’t pull his face out of John’s shoulder yet, because he’s a little afraid of what John will see in his eyes. There’s a moment of silence, and John kisses just above his ear. Eventually, he takes a steadying breath and lifts his head to look John in the eye. 

“The CD was perfect,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else there is to offer that isn’t just—completely pouring out his heart. 

John kisses him, quicker this time but harder as well, like he’s doing instead of saying something. Thatcher understands the feeling. He rests his forehead against John’s and lets the moment settle, breathing each other’s air. His arms are looped around John’s hips. 

“I liked the song about me,” Thatcher says, his voice small. “Because it was about you liking me.” He takes a deep breath and continues. “Because I like you a lot and I like hearing about how much you like me.”

This time, when John kisses him, it’s heavy with intent, with a lot of words that neither of them are going to say yet. His mouth slides across Thatcher’s, his teeth a little rough against the spot on Thatcher’s lower lip he’s been worrying at. John’s arm tightens around his back, pulling him impossibly closer, pressing their hips together for the first time all night. 

Thatcher wants to be touching John everywhere, is the thing, and he isn’t, but he doesn’t want to stop kissing, he doesn’t want to take his hands off John for even a second, even if doing that would mean putting them back on skin. 

With halting, unsteady steps, he pulls John toward the bed, refusing to break the kiss for more than a split second. They stumble backward when Thatcher’s knees hit the mattress, and then John is straddling his thighs and now he has a clear height advantage and he’s leaning down to tug at Thatcher’s lower lip with his teeth. 

There’s a thunking noise and, belatedly, Thatcher realizes that John kicked his shoes off. 

It’s a twin bed, not wide enough for Thatcher to lie on across the width, so he does some scrambling and tugging until he’s on his back with John looming over him, propped up on his elbows. Thatcher puts both arms around John’s shoulders and draws him in tighter, until he’s letting his weight rest on Thatcher. It probably won’t be comfortable for very long, but right now Thatcher wants as much contact as he can get. 

The angles are messy for kissing, so Thatcher trails sloppy kisses across John’s forehead, and John squirms until he can lick and bite and kiss his way across Thatcher’s collarbone and back again. He sinks his teeth into the soft skin just above it, and sucks hard enough to bruise. Thatcher makes a small, choked noise just thinking about it, about showing up to his off-ice training tomorrow and changing and the hickey clearly visible on his skin.

He rolls them onto their sides so he can capture John’s mouth again, kiss him hard and then soften it into something leisurely. He’s hard, in a kind of non-urgent way where he’d rather keep kissing John even though his lips are starting to feel chapped, because he’s missed getting to kiss John, because it feels like everything he hasn’t found a way to say yet. 

John’s hard-on is pressing against his thigh, but he isn’t doing anything more about it than Thatcher is, just holding him and kissing him and occasionally shifting so nothing goes numb. Thatcher’s lips are buzzing, almost raw and overused. He doesn’t care, not with John breathing softly and his hands under John’s shirt against his warm skin. 

He’s barely even moving his hips, just occasional distracted hitches when it occurs to him that maybe he should do something about his boner. 

After what feels like it might legitimately have been an hour, when Thatcher’s lips have moved from buzzing to numb and he’s just breathing against John’s neck, John works his hand down the front of Thatcher’s sweatpants. He wraps his hand loosely around Thatcher’s dick, and hums to himself. Thatcher makes a pleased noise, but it’s mostly muffled by John’s skin. 

“I’ve missed your dick,” John says, and Thatcher snickers a little. 

“I’ve missed you touching my dick,” he says, lifting his head enough for the words to be audible. 

John makes a fake offended noise. “You didn’t miss my dick?”

Thatcher hums demurely. “Well, maybe a little bit. You are pretty handy with it.”

“I can’t believe I’m jerking you off right now,” John says. He’s shaking his head, Thatcher can feel the motion of it, the way his tendons shift and pull. 

“Right?” Thatcher says, letting smugness seep into his voice. “You could be blowing me and instead all I’m getting is a handjob.”

John laughs, a fond sound that Thatcher can feel in his chest. “So needy.” 

“Only with you,” Thatcher says. John makes a small noise, defeated but happy. He kisses Thatcher twice quickly, and then rolls him onto his back. 

“That was dirty pool, Demko,” he says, but Thatcher gets John’s mouth on his dick not ten seconds later, so he’s not exactly going to stop cheating if he’s rewarded for it like this. 

John is good with his mouth, has been every time he’s sucked Thatcher off, steady and confident and adept with his hand around the base. He’s strong enough to keep Thatcher’s hips on the bed with just one hand, and he knows exactly how much pressure, how much suction Thatcher needs to get off embarrassingly fast.

Of course, then he doesn’t let him get there. He brings Thatcher to the edge twice, until he’s shaking and futilely trying to fuck up into John’s mouth, and then pulls away, leaving Thatcher to writhe helplessly, making pathetic noises and begging. It’s terrible, and excruciatingly hot. 

Finally, he lets Thatcher come down his throat, a string of jizz on his lower lip when he pulls away. Thatcher feels like his limbs aren’t really attached to to his body, but he manages to kiss John when he crawls up the bed, and lick the come off his lip. 

The noise John makes is low and needy, which is nice because Thatcher just made a lot of extremely needy noises and John deserves a taste of his own medicine. John is thrusting absently against Thatcher’s hip, the friction a razor’s edge from too much after Thatcher’s already come. 

Thatcher opens his mouth, and the first thing that comes out is a choked moan, because John grazed his dick and overstimulation is—a lot. But he manages to form words again, and it’s very easy to look John in the eye and say, his voice a little rough, “you should fuck me.” 

“Jesus,” John says, his voice even more fucked than Thatcher’s. Blowjobs will do that. “Yeah, okay.” He stares at Thatcher for a moment, looking wholly overcome.

“There’s stuff in the middle drawer of the desk,” Thatcher says, and then, because he’s a dick, “I’m not getting up for it.” 

John pats Thatcher on the hip as he stands up, and then blatantly smirks down at him. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll get it up again before I’m done with you.”

Thatcher laughs a little weakly, somewhere between appalled and turned on. And then John is back, pushing his legs up and crawling between them, so that he can slide a slick finger around Thatcher’s hole, teasing and circling and not _actually fucking him_ , which is really what Thatcher wants from this. He does eventually slip it inside, but not until Thatcher’s whining and thrusting back against him.

It’s like Thatcher’s body doesn’t care that he’s not even hard, like he wants this so much—or maybe wants John so much—that it’s completely separate from whether or not he’ll be coming. 

“I love how much you love this,” John says, his breath warm against Thatcher’s thigh. “You’ve already come and you still want it so much.” He sounds a little awed, like Thatcher is better than anything he could ever imagine. It’s heady, the way John talks to him.

The way John talks about him, Thatcher thinks, remembering the time John wrote a song about him. 

He’s momentarily distracted and John takes the opportunity to give him a second finger, pushing both of them in hard, until Thatcher makes a noise that’s far louder than any considerate person in a dorm room would. Well, now all his neighbors know he’s getting laid. It’s hard to care when John’s got two fingers in his ass, working them rhythmically now, spreading them just enough for Thatcher to feel it. 

The third finger, slick as the first two, makes him whine. He’s starting to get hard again, somehow, and the process speeds up significantly when John crooks his fingers, glancing them across Thatcher’s prostate. It makes him shudder, pushing himself harder against John’s fingers.

John, of course, tuts quietly and pulls them out, a little too fast to be comfortable. Thatcher closes his eyes, fists his hands in the comforter, trying to steady himself somewhat. And then John is pressing into him, slower than Thatcher can ever remember him doing. When he’s all the way in, Thatcher feels so full it’s hard to remember how to breathe, and that’s before John pries one of Thatcher’s hands out of the blankets and laces their fingers together. 

He’s leaning forward as far as he can, enough to kiss Thatcher softly and squeeze his hand. And then he starts to move, slow thrusts that are more gentle than anything else. Thatcher’s thighs are shaking, from the position, from how much he wants John to really fuck him, from—he doesn’t know, he can’t know, there’s nothing that can hold his focus except the smooth slide of John’s dick.

John doesn’t actually fuck him harder, just continues with the steady pace and lets the heat build in Thatcher’s stomach unabated. He kisses him, soft, and doesn’t let go of his hand. 

It’s not like any sex Thatcher thinks he’s ever had before. He’s not sure he’s ever kissed someone with his eyes open, and it’s hard, he wants to close them and let the sensations take over, but he doesn’t want to stop looking at John’s face. 

John comes first, two hard thrusts and then he pitches forward, shaking a little against Thatcher. Somehow—Thatcher has no idea, because he still doesn’t have the coordination for it himself—John gets a hand between them, jerking Thatcher tight and fast until he comes again. 

They’re a mess, Thatcher thinks, when he can focus on anything but the hazy feeling of contentment. There’s come all over both of them, and they’re soaked in sweat. The shower isn’t far, and it doesn’t sound like anyone is using it, but John’s weight pressing him into the mattress is the kind of comforting that makes Thatcher never want to move again. 

John shifts until he can kiss the corner of his mouth, and then tucks his head under Thatcher’s chin. 

“You came to a lot of open mic nights for someone who doesn’t actually like my music,” he says. The satiated contentment seeping through his voice makes it hard to read any ill-will into the words.

Thatcher hums and curls an arm around John’s shoulders. “I like you a lot.” 

John makes a small, pleased noise, and curls himself impossibly tighter against Thatcher. 

\--

Before the fall semester starts, Thatcher sneaks away to New Haven for a few days, most of which he spends sprawled naked across John’s bed, because he has a single and that means there’s no reason to not be naked as much as possible.

John plays at an open mic night in Hartford the third day Thatcher is there, and Thatcher goes, obviously. He sits at the bar, drinking his beer slowly and applauding after all of John’s songs. He plays three, and the last one is a more polished version of the one Thatcher heard for the first time in the master bedroom of John’s parents’ vacation home. His smile goes a little wobbly, and he hides it in his beer. 

As soon as the song ends, the man two seats down catches his eye. John is walking off the stage, Thatcher is clapping with more enthusiasm than the rest of the bar combined, and the man gives him a very strange look. Thatcher shrugs. 

With his guitar case slung over his shoulder, John walks toward them. He kisses Thatcher, perfunctory, and Thatcher pulls him in closer. He hears a noise that might be the other man at the bar being a little shocked, so he slips John some tongue. 

John is shaking his head when Thatcher pulls back, his smile a little disbelieving.

“I like it when you play that one,” Thatcher says, and the weirdest thing is how much he means it.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a rough approximation of the mix CD John makes for Thatcher [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9zweM1emDna9OkUuYpVyv2NeAQFqkVls), for your listening pleasure. Fair warning: Wonderwall is actually on it.


End file.
